Curious about Gedeon or Abilify

So I fired my whackadoo shrink and started seeing my old one. Weight gain is still an issue to me and now I've noticed I've begun to have symptoms of akathisia. However, one positive about the restlessness is that I am able to get up and go and do what I need to do even if I am feeling crappy. But, sometimes I just wish that I can turn it off. Antipsychotics have saved my life and I can deal with some of the side affects but the weight gain is really bugging me and I heard that both Abilify and Geodeon have less side affects. My therapist suggested Geodeon for weight loss and I am curious to know if this is true. Thoughts anyone?

I take Abilify now at 5mg. It's pretty effective for managing the psychotic features part of BP. However, I was upped to 10mg during a recent hospitalization, and the side effects were really bad. Fever, muscle aches, high blood sugar (which meant cravings for sweets and a lot of drinking and peeing). But, that's just me. Every medicine affects every person differently. Keep this in mind, and just keep your pdoc updated on how you feel if it's any different from before.

I take Abilify now at 5mg. It's pretty effective for managing the psychotic features part of BP. However, I was upped to 10mg during a recent hospitalization, and the side effects were really bad. Fever, muscle aches, high blood sugar (which meant cravings for sweets and a lot of drinking and peeing). But, that's just me. Every medicine affects every person differently. Keep this in mind, and just keep your pdoc updated on how you feel if it's any different from before.

Strange. I'm at 15mg and only have the akathisia part. I take Artane for that.

I take 15mg of Abilify and I had akathisia at first (when on 5mg, then 10mg) but it went away in two weeks. No weight gain so far, other than some weight from starting school and sitting on my ass all day. Abilify is my wonder drug.

I used to take Abilify, started at 15mg/day and titrated up to 30mg/day with no akathisia at all. No weight gain, either. It actually gave me a decent boost of energy without that zonked out feeling caused by many APs.

Abilify has been a godsend to me. It killed my depression, and now I am as stable as I have been in years. However, I have gained weight on it, but to be honest, I feel so good on it that I don't really care.

I didn't gain weight on geodon, but hit sedation issues that weren't manageable and had to come off it. My pdoc said they're not typical, but they have happened to others here, like vapourware mentioned above.

I'm on abilify. I haven't yet figured out the weight gain. I ended up getting put on another med for appetite/concentration/low energy issues and that one definitively took away the appetite. But I think it might have been stronger on abilify beforehand. I probably just wasn't on it long enough to tell.

Past Rxs: zoloft (like a sugar pill); lexapro (something nasty); ambien (worked, can't remember why we stopped it); sonata (stopped working); effexorXR (wonderful for helping to yank me out of an episode; stopped b/c it seemed to be causing some agitation); geodon (sedation issues); phentermine (helped with appetite, but not with energy, which is what I really needed it for); zyprexa (was just for sleep, and strangely it wouldn't induce it); lamictal (did wonderful anti-depressant things, stopped in order to see if it was causing lethargy); provigil (insurance denied prior authorization).

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